Vanity
by Incomprehensible
Summary: For Kagome, looking into mirrors never used to be a problem – until she found out that every mirror has two sides. Running through life ignoring the warning signs, Kagome finds she may not have what it takes to look in the mirror and see what she's become
1. I

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

Mirrors are scary things. They can show you who you are, who you were and what's inside. For Kagome, looking into mirrors never used to be a problem – until she found out that every mirror has two sides. Running through life ignoring the warning signs, Kagome finds out that she may not have what it takes to look in the mirror and see what she has become.

Kagome Higurashi, at age twenty-two, had fallen in love a grand total of two times. The first had been so intense and mind-shattering that Kagome hadn't even stopped to consider the consequences – she had just dived right in and rode the waves out to the best of her ability.

The repercussions had been enough to send her to the hospital with a concussion and three broken bones.

That was when therapy had started.

Seven months later and she had been considered "normal" enough, and released back to the real world – like a cow ready to be butchered.

The truth of the matter, though, was that she _had_ been butchered – in the most brutal of ways. This time, there was no useful cure, because her executioner had been her boyfriend at the time, and her soon-to-be husband. Their engagement had been secret. They'd run away to elope with a witness to verify the authenticity of the act.

They'd gotten the running away part down and behind them, but her fiancé seemed to have a little trouble understanding the concept of "I do", because at the altar he had revoked his proposal and run off with the witness.

Kagome had been left to find her own way home with a broken heart and open wounds and sores. She had been put back into therapy immediately upon returning home.

It had taken two weeks, but Kagome had started talking again.

She'd taken things into her own hands this time and had told the therapist that the only way she'd talk was if he promised confidentiality and never to write anything down – not at the time, and not after. Grudgingly, the therapist had agreed.

Her first words had been: "Funny how there are two words in 'therapist'."

The tick-tick-ticking of the clock punctuated the annoying tapping of her foot. They were the only sounds in the spacious office.

"The quiet should be illegal." Kagome informed her therapist smartly, her eyes darting to the clock on the wall and then down to the watch she wore on her wrist. One minute and thirty-six seconds separated the two times. Kagome wished she could reset Mr. Taishou's clock. It was wrong – she was sure of it. After all, every single clock in her house (all six of them) was ticking the same time. She'd made sure of that.

"Why do you think that?" Doctor Taishou asked in a very disinterested way that bore on Kagome's nerves.

Pursing her lips, Kagome turned her head away, refusing to answer.

That was always how it was. Their weekly meetings never changed.

From the corner of her eye, Kagome saw Doctor Taishou's hand twitch.

She knew this was the signature move he made when he wanted to write something down but couldn't. Kagome was observant.

She wouldn't allow him to write anything down during or after their sessions – one of her rules.

Kagome cackled evilly, turning her head back to face her therapist. "Having trouble, Doctor?" She asked rhetorically.

Sesshoumaru's lips tightened momentarily and his hand twitched again.

"Thought so." Kagome smirked.

The tapping quickened in pace and the minute hand moved a millimetre.

Kagome sighed and leaned back on the plush leather cushion, scrutinizing the man before her.

The straight nose and strong chin reminded her of the pictures of warlords she'd seen on her trip to the museum. Frighteningly intense. His eyes were the colour of sun-kissed honey, but frigid and cold like liquid nitrogen. The silver hair he sported lay in a ponytail at the base of his head, sometimes cascading down his shoulders and chest. The long crescent moon eyelashes rested against his cheeks the rare times he blinked.

She'd never seen him smile.

"You're incredibly girly." She declared, at last shattering the silence she had created.

And that eyebrow... it drove her crazy. Every time it rose to hide behind an immaculately white bang she felt like strangling him.

He was supposed to be helping her.

She didn't have much faith in either of them.

"I bet it drives the girls crazy. You might actually be able to smell the oestrogen one of these days, you know." She continued. Taking a second look, Kagome scrunched up her nose, shaking her head. "Unlikely."

"Does it drive you crazy, _Ka-go-me?" _Sesshoumaru asked, breaking her name down into three teasing syllables.

Kagome ignored him, instead opting to turn her gaze to the bustling city outside. Kagome hated Christmas more than any other holiday.

Nothing good ever came from having to buy presents for snotty children and awkward relatives.

The world must have been a better place before Christ was born, she thought dejectedly.

How sad – to be born in the wrong era.

Kagome picked at the hem of her sleeve absentmindedly, biting her lip – a habit she had picked up somewhere or another in the last three years or so.

"I'm going home tomorrow." She said suddenly, startling the silence.

Refusing to look or acknowledge the man before her, Kagome turned her gaze back to the clock.

Only ten minutes had passed since she had last checked.

Time always did move so slowly for her.

"- For Christmas. I'll be back at home. The facility will be releasing me. For good this time." All she had to do was sign the release forms and she was a free woman again.

Kagome had missed choosing and deciding for herself. She hated always having to hand the reins to her life to someone else so they could steer her and screw up for her. It was tiring.

"Is that so?" Sesshoumaru asked disinterestedly, not really caring what her answer was.

Kagome knew what therapists were like – they were all the same. God complexes – the idea that they could help people. They disgusted her.

Kagome hummed in acknowledgement. The first response she had given him since starting to come to his "lessons" three months before. A pity that he missed it in his fit of boredom. Kagome snickered behind her hand.

Tick, tick, tick, the clock went, and tap, tap, tap her foot went against the chair's leg, an aggravating sound.

Kagome stopped, picking up the black and pink patchwork purse from behind her chair. Rummaging around, Kagome "ahah"-d in victory, removing the candy from her purse, its wrapper, and popped it into her mouth.

The hard candy smacked against the back of her teeth and she rolled the wrapper between her index finger and thumb. She hadn't been able to sit long ever since returning to her family.

Sesshoumaru's hand twitched.

The candy smacked against her teeth again, and she smirked.

Unnecessary sound annoyed the rigid man. Kagome did it again to annoy the doctor.

"Cease that offensive sound!" He barked a few short minutes later, after she had successfully smacked the candy against her teeth a grand total of ten times.

Kagome clucked her tongue disapprovingly and crunched the candy between her molars.

Mint invaded her mouth.

Half an hour had passed.

-

The pink and black socks nauseated her. They didn't match. They were unworthy. She couldn't wear them.

They were the only socks she had left, and Kagome refused to go sockless. The pink offended her and she scowled in distaste as she rolled it up her ankle to mid-calf.

The grey thigh-high boots would cover them, but to Kagome it felt wrong – out of place.

The doctors had told her she had a thing called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – a mind thing.

Kagome felt like throwing up. She didn't feel right. The sock felt wrong on her, like it was defiling her person just by being in her presence. Kagome bit the inside of her cheek, relishing in the faint metallic taste that leaked from the wound. Later, she promised herself, when she got home; she would burn the pink sock.

The unease didn't decrease, but she did feel a little better knowing that she only had to put up with it for a little while longer.

Buttoning up her coat and strapping the thick red belt around her waist, Kagome motioned for the cabby to grab her bags, and got into the atrocious yellow car.

She hated Christmas.

There were many reasons, but the most prominent two were because of the cold and because Christmas day, in and of itself, was on an uneven number – twenty-five. After that came the fact that it was a holiday and that meant she would actually have to spend time with her family.

The cab's door slammed closed behind the cabby and the car pulled out of the vacant lot and into the Christmas-day rush.

The stylish grey pompom bobbed on top of her hat, and Kagome fought the urge to reach up and keep it in place.

It, too, would be burned upon reaching her home.

Kagome snagged a hard candy from her purse and rolled it between her gloved fingers.

In the front of the taxi, the driver glanced in the rear view mirror, flashing her a cheesy grin through the reflected surface.

She did not return it.

"Goin' home for Christmas?" He asked, inching forward in the lane two feet.

"Yupp." Kagome replied hesitantly, stealing a glance at her watch.

The cab's clock was off by three minutes exactly, she noticed much to her displeasure. Why was it that nobody seemed to keep a proper watch on the time?

Soft Christmas carols played in the background, and Kagome was annoyed to find herself tapping her toes along to the festive tune.

She wasn't supposed to like Christmas, and there she was, in the back of _Santa Clause's _very own taxi, tapping her toes along to the beat of some stupid, modern rendition of _"Jingle Bells"_.

Smokey white condensation frosted the windows.

Her left foot felt heavier than her right – the one clothed in the dreadful pink sock.

Kagome popped the candy into her mouth, closing her eyes and imagining the satisfaction she would feel while burning the sock and hat.

The pompom bobbed up and down on top of her hat.

_(Updates will be at my convenience.__ I get my ideas in the weirdest of ways. This one came to me while I was crocheting, so, while I'm suffering from rope burn, I thought I'd write it down. – Incomprehensible)_


	2. II

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

It was over, all of it. The red, blue and purple flashing lights just reaffirmed the notion – the rude awakening to her long overdue exit delay.

Everything was over.

The realization had come as a shock to Kagome as she laid at the bottom of the useless, broken old well. The transparent tears she had shed so many times before refused to fall and that made Kagome depressed.

Kagome had heard that it went "denial, anger, and acceptance".

She had already passed the first two, but acceptance wouldn't come – she doubted it ever would at that time.

Kagome couldn't accept the fact that they were all dead. Ultimately, she knew that Sango and Miroku would die long before her time, but what of Shippou and Kirara? Surely they had found one way or another to survive the years. They had to! And then there was Inuyasha. Kagome absolutely refused to believe that he was dead. That was impossible. Her warrior in red couldn't have died. He was too stubborn to have died through years, and he would have killed himself before he was defeated in battle, it was simply unthinkable.

He had promised to find her in her time – they'd sworn to be together. Forever.

He hadn't come yet.

Five years and he hadn't come.

But still, Kagome kept hope. Maybe he couldn't find her? Or maybe he had forgotten about her?

That was even more depressing.

Everywhere she went, there were signs of change – the moving dates, the years flying by – she had already graduated and gotten a job – but most of all, the signs of life everywhere. It was slowly driving her insane. The whole idea of life going on without Inuyasha – that idea hadn't even occurred to her, because... for Kagome, there _was_ no life outside of Inuyasha. Not really, anyways.

But the swirling red and orange and blue on the ceiling – it wasn't so sure.

It was like her eyes had popped open after being in a coma for so long – like she was finally seeing the world again after such a long time. Like a child: curious about everything, _asking_ about everything. Afraid to blink unless they missed something.

It was in that split second that Kagome knew she had forgotten Inuyasha – that she had realized that he _wasn't coming_.

But the question was – was she okay with that? Could she recover and get on with her life? Act like nothing had happened and move onward?

For heaven's sake – she was twenty-two – hardly a child, and only fitting that she should be able to give up such childish mentalities.

Kagome was sick of lying to herself and her family.

She was _not _alright. She would not _be_ alright because, for once in her life, there was no Inuyasha – no safety net when she fell. No warm arms to catch her, and no soft voice to tell her everything was going to be okay, and Kagome felt utterly exposed. Naked without him.

It was ironic that Naraku's wish would be granted after five and a half years – five hundred and five, to be exact.

"Eternal misery..." Kagome used out loud, a wry smile spreading her lips in the most wan and humourless of ways.

Kagome could only imagine how her mother must have felt when her husband had been pulled away from her, lifeless and cold.

She was lucky enough to escape childless. Although, Kagome didn't remember her mother grieving for five years – not that she could remember, having only been two at the time.

Their situations were different, however.

But then again, her mother was a much stronger woman than herself, and had been married and pregnant again within the next four years.

For the first time in two years, Kagome was with her whole family again – Souta, mamma and Jii-chan. And although the circumstances that had brought them together again weren't the greatest or the most wonderful, Kagome was happy.

It was nice to be home again.

Shortly after three in the morning and after five hours of waiting, Kagome's grandfather was declared dead to the family.

–

The air was crisp and cold, brittle with the smell of freshly turned soil and hot, salty tears.

Kagome didn't belong – the cemetery wasn't the place for her, and so she stood at the very back, hidden away where nobody could see or hear her, weeping for her own loss and shedding imaginary tears for the man whom, even though wasn't hers in blood, had been the only grandfather and pseudo father-figure in her life.

Kagome missed his senility already. She missed his gap-toothed, carefree smile; she missed the sparkle in his beady little eyes. There would be no more sutras, chants or weird birthday gifts, and even knowing that, Kagome still couldn't get herself to wish that she had given up that year spent in the Feudal Era to better acquaint herself with the ancient man.

He had been on the verge of his ninetieth birthday.

Kagome's hands trembled inside the bell-sleeves of her grey, grey coat. Her eyes watered and her nose was red and running. But only from the cold, she told herself dispassionately, hating herself for not being able to cry at the funeral.

Kagome wondered if that made her a bad person – being unable to cry.

The tombstone towered over her as she approached, her fingers trembling and her toes frozen after the ceremony had ended and all the guests had left.

Withdrawing the old, homemade ofuda from her pocket, Kagome placed it at the granite's base, her breath shuddering out in white puffs of condensed air.

"This isn't over, old man," she told him, moving back a few steps, her eyes absently trailing over the elegant script that scrawled his name in gold, and just under that, his birth and death years. "This is just... temporary goodbye."

Kagome drew in a shaky breath. "So, goodbye, old man. I'll see you soon. Real soon."

Kagome left.

–

"Life is a paradox. Time is a paradox." Kagome commented Thursday afternoon as she sat in the comfortable leather seat across from Doctor Taishou.

"Why do you say that?" The doctor asked, his attention fully drawn to the clock on the other side of the room.

Kagome ignored him. "They tell me you're the best," she told him absentmindedly, her boots clicking away a steady rhythm of four and eight on the marble floor.

"'They'?" Taishou asked, turning his gaze to her.

Kagome didn't acknowledge him, instead, continuing. "They say that if there's anyone that can fix me, it's you."

"I can't fix you, Kagome, if I don't know what I'm supposed to be fixing."

"Don't misunderstand – I'm not here because I think you can do anything for me, because I know you can't. I'm here because it gets them off my back and because it's a fun way to empty my bank account."

"I see."

They were both silent then, and Kagome wondered what Sesshoumaru was thinking.

It was true, though – they had told her he was the best. If he treated all his patients like this, Kagome thought, then it was a wonder how he even kept the job – any job at all.

Or maybe... maybe the institute only sent him patients so he could make them worse, drive them even father into madness that eventually they would have to go back to the institute. Kagome nodded in agreement with herself. She could believe that. It was a cheap trick – a scam for money, nothing she hadn't seen before.

Greedy money-sucking bastards out for power, fame and rank in social hierarchy. Absolutely disgusting.

Kagome had pegged Sesshoumaru as the more honourable type of person, but appearances were deceiving. You never could tell with people what they might be, what they had the potential to be, and what they actually were.

Like every-day chameleons, she mused internally.

Kagome laughed out loud, shattering the intense quiet and drawing Sesshoumaru's attention.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked conversationally, and to Kagome he sounded almost... interested...? Amused? She didn't know, 'nor did she care. They only had a little more time together.

"Pigs." Kagome answered, waving a hand as if to dismiss the subject entirely.

"Do you think I'm insane, Doctor?" Kagome asked out of the blue.

A sound of surprise made its way out of Sesshoumaru's throat, his face screwing up temporarily before he schooled his features once more, and Kagome smirked wickedly. The "emotionless" man was showing quite a few emotions – letting them slip through his stony will. Kagome was enjoying stripping him of his barriers.

Kagome loved breaking people and right then, she swore she would break this man, Doctor Sesshoumaru Taishou.

"The thought hadn't been totally expelled from my mind." Sesshoumaru admitted. "Why do you ask?"

This was the first time they had gotten anything close to having a functional conversation, she noted.

"My grandfather died this past weekend." Kagome confided, slowing the tempo her fingers had set against her thigh until it was in time with the ticking second hand on his clock.

"I'm sorry." He apologized. "How are you dealing with it?"

Kagome glared at him and there was silence again.

Tentatively, Sesshoumaru ventured out, "How did he die?"

Kagome stopped her tapping all together and looked at him straight in the eye as she answered: "Heart failure."

They were both quiet for the remainder of the session.


	3. III

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

"Why?" Sesshoumaru asked, resting his arms on his knees as he leaned forward to get a better look. "Why did you do that?"

The air conditioner blared from the ceiling while on the busy streets below, cars honked and rode by. The air conditioner annoyed her. It was too loud. She couldn't hear herself think.

The clock ticked in the corner, counting down the seconds and minutes to the end of their session.

Kagome bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself to stare at him, to look him in the eyes. She wondered if it would be this hard to stare death in the eyes, and then immediately discarded the thought. No, death would be much easier to look in the eyes.

Kagome wondered if they were red, or if they were yellow.

It was too bad they were actually blue.

She would have liked to have stared at something she didn't see on a daily basis.

Doctor Taishou's eyes were brown.

The clock kept on ticking, and the air conditioner kept on roaring and the horns kept honking.

Kagome couldn't look away. She couldn't back down or get distracted by one of Doctor Taishou's many imperfect qualities. She did like the room colour, though.

"Miss Higurashi." Sesshoumaru warned, sitting up straight and squaring his shoulders.

Sesshoumaru didn't like using people's first names. Kagome had observed that it made him feel less professional. Less doctor-like.

The minute little ticks were slowly distracting her, the rhythm too even, too measured, building up the crescendo, the wind joining in, fluttering against the window and in the trees, and then a car honked and it had peaked; exploded; lost the sacred rhythm and gained freeness.

Kagome didn't like freedom.

She didn't have it. She didn't like it.

"Kagome," Sesshoumaru tried again, and Kagome snapped her attention back to him and everything was as it originally had been. There had been no crescendo, no slow in and out of the wind, no ticking clock and no symphony of muses.

A pity.

She always had liked classical music. She would have been an excellent conductor, if she had ever been taught, she thought. Standing on the podium like some goddess of composure and music, sweet divination and singing the malady of song.

Her fingers itched to play, and she had to fight to keep the steady tapping rhythmical. One rhythm had already been broken. Kagome wouldn't allow this one to be destroyed.

"_Kagome_," Sesshoumaru pressed: all traces of patience gone from his voice. Kagome ignored him, her fingers picking up their tempo against the armrest of her chair, her heart doubling in speed as anxiety coursed through her veins like blood. She couldn't allow it to be broken, because then _she_ would be broken. Ironic how the first two times had been by men – no, she corrected herself, boys – and this time by a tempo on a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

"You aren't going to ignore me this time, Miss Higurashi," Doctor Taishou declared, his hand fisting in order to stop it from twitching. Kagome didn't know if it was a conscious or subconscious act. She hoped he didn't know about his little knee-jerk reaction. She liked to know when he was struggling to contain himself. "Tell me. Why did you do that to yourself?" He demanded, gesturing to her palms, then to her elbows and farther up to point at her neck.

Kagome pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, glaring at the inane man before her. She didn't like him, anyway.

Sesshoumaru exhaled angrily and leaned back in his chair, crossing one of his legs over the other, the ankle resting on his knee and Kagome could tell he had given up. She smirked triumphantly, satisfied with her conquest. She was often the victor when it came to fights of these sorts. She wouldn't answer him. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

"Are you even going to talk?" Sesshoumaru asked, a resigned tone slipping into his voice as he took in her appearance, the red and black lines running across each crease on her creamy-white skin, untouched by the sun and lacking all the natural nutrients that strengthened a body. It was a wonder how she hadn't gotten sick in the year and a half that she had been living at the institute and now around the city.

Kagome scowled at him, turned her head away, and sighed.

Her whole day hadn't gone well: first having visited the Optometrist office and gotten her eyes checked by _Doctor _Benson. She hadn't liked Benson (because honestly, when had _any_ kind of doctor ever helped her?).

_His _air conditioner hadn't worked properly, either, and the woman at the front desk hadn't been doing her secretarial duties like she should have. It annoyed Kagome to see the woman _chatting_ of all things.

She was such a hypocrite. While Kagome didn't work, she often did other things instead of what she ought to be doing – for example, looking up one hundred and one ways to clean linoleum, or how to unjam one's head from the toilet instead of work on legal documents like she should have. In fact, just before she had come, Kagome had been researching the mating habits of the slug.

She had discovered that it was a very... interesting... process, and had quickly closed the browser and cleared the history.

Kagome wouldn't tell Sesshoumaru Taishou, though. She didn't like him. Kagome was sure that any chance Sesshoumaru got, he would send her back to the institute, and the whole slug porn (because that was what it was, really) incident would just be another symptom to the ever-growing List of Disturbing Things About Higurashi Kagome.

Number four-oh-two: _morbid sense of curiosity._

Kagome stood when the carefully-set timer went off and made her way out of the room.

Pausing by the door, she turned to look at Sesshoumaru. "Because I can." She declared, pointedly glancing at the red marker-line on the inside of her elbow. "Thank you for the _stimulating_ talk, as always, Doctor."

And then she turned and left.

_(Help me come up with alternative language-words for 'none', because they describe my inspiration for this chapter. – Incomprehensible)_


	4. IV

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

The soft padded coat wrapped around Kagome's lithe form snugly, the polished ebony button on her chest rising and falling with every breath she took. It was another quiet day. Another insignificant day, but everything seemed to have taken on a grey hue.

The concrete-and-wood walls were cold to her touch and the plastic tarmac sheets flapped reverently in the wind as rain pelted down on the construction site.

Kagome stood on the ledge of the thirty-first floor, her fingers trapped between the hard-backed cement and a set up two-by-four beam to keep her from falling as she slowly leaned over the ledge, her hair whipping around her face precariously as the wind whispered its danger to her. There wasn't much, save for the dim flickering of her car's headlights down below and the muted hue of the city in the distance.

A sort of retreat, she would call it. A retreat from reality.

Just what the doctor had ordered.

The twinkling lights of Tokyo city, dotted in clusters of white and tawny yellow and red lights along the horizon reminded Kagome of some sad festival.

A crack of thunder boomed, shaking the ground and rattling Kagome to her core while a streak of cobalt lightning illuminated the sky and the dingy little light behind her spluttered in response, the light stalling and plunging her into semi-darkness every now and then.

Kagome sighed and pulled herself back, stepping away from the ledge absentmindedly as she trailed a black, glove-clad hand over the to–be windowsills, her index and middle fingers collecting sawdust and dirt that lingered there, dampened by the rain.

She'd idled with the idea of jumping while over the precipice that held her back from the dangerous plummet, but hadn't found the satisfaction in completing the thought, never mind turning fantasy into reality. In any case, she rather liked this coat, and it would be a shame to ruin it in such a way.

Her job as an auditor came in handy when it came to balancing her cheque book, and she'd had more than enough saved up to buy the whole building. Soon, the very room she stood in would be finished and she'd be the owner. Kagome hummed low in her through, discontent. How long had she been waiting? She checked her watch and scowled at the silver accessory.

Half an hour.

For such a punctual and strict man, Doctor Taishou sure was hard-pressed to keep his word under the current circumstances. Their late-night meeting was nothing new, though. Kagome'd played the poor bastard enough to have him dancing to her tune: the distressed maiden; the angsty lady with a dark past; the needy patient. She'd made the call, and Doctor Taishou would come. He always came.

The sound of wood being scraped over concrete made her turn to see the silver-haired psychologist behind her, slowly picking his way around the wooden frames and other obstacles, varying in material and weight. Kagome smirked wryly at him, turning around as he made his way over to her side. "You're late, Doctor."

Sesshoumaru grunted. "You're the one that called me out here."

Kagome didn't reply and they were silent as another clap of thunder rolled over the land and the tempest picked up. Kagome had always liked storms, though. There was something about the tempest and the howling wind that lit a fire in her veins and Kagome closed her eyes to listen to the raging symphony. "Can you hear it, Doctor?" She asked, tilting her head to the side and counting the beats out under her breath. "The overture?"

"Hmm." Sesshoumaru replied humourlessly, and Kagome didn't have to crack an eye to tell that one of his eyebrows had risen. She doubted he would understand. Only a musician would get it.

Silence.

Kagome opened her eyes again and looked down at the city through the rain, noting dimly that it had picked up again. The light flickered dangerously and threatened to go out, but Kagome didn't mind. A damp chill ran through the air, nipping at her exposed flesh and Kagome shrugged in her coat, drawing the neck up around her cheeks in an attempt to keep the air insulated. Spring rain always was cold.

From the corner of her eye, Kagome traced the sharp edge of Sesshoumaru's jaw, revelling in the way it jutted out arrogantly, half his face illuminated in silver and blue while the other half was encased in the warm glow of amber and shadow. His hair blazed gold in the lamplight, and Kagome wondered how he came to be a psychiatrist. He was a very dull man. Very successful in business, but very dull overall. Perhaps it was to appease his father – they never had been on the best of terms or had the most snug of relationships (or so she'd read in the papers). She wouldn't be surprised if it was through a sense of honour and duty that had made him chose the neurological path. Money wasn't an issue, so it must have been something else. Kagome shrugged again and turned away.

"I own it." She declared quietly, gesturing to the chaotic order around her – the flapping plastic; the damp wood; the twisted, bolted and melted metal. "It should be done in a month, give or take a few days. I'll move in, then."

"What about your job?" Sesshoumaru asked, his voice equally as soft, the timbre broken to match hers like a soft melody, and Kagome found herself almost jealous.

"What _about_ my job?" Kagome snorted and shook her head, walking the few steps that separated her from the buzzing light that was hung on a peg protruding from a wooden beam. She inspected it carefully, eyeing the iron ropes and fibreglass that held it in place. "I can still do it, and even if I didn't want to, I have enough saved up to keep living like this for a good few decades."

Sesshoumaru craned his neck to watch her with one eye, a quiet rumble reverberating around his chest cavity. He suspected that it was a laugh, or something related to it, but he wasn't quite sure. It had been a long time since he'd laughed, and he'd long forgotten the sensation. It _was_ just like her, though. Women were getting proud creatures – too proud if he had any say in it.

All women were needed for was bearing and rearing babies, tending to a house and taking care of their husbands, but unfortunately for him, that wasn't the modern way of thinking anymore. Sometimes Sesshoumaru wished he'd been born a couple centuries earlier. He had the nagging suspicion that he might have fit in better.

"What about sessions?"

The question was unexpected and snapped him out of his musings. It wasn't often that he was caught unawares and Sesshoumaru mentally kicked himself for it. It was getting far too easy to let his guard down around the cynical woman. This was the reason he didn't believe in love.

Sesshoumaru saw what it did to other people – what it turned them into – and vowed to never play fool in its grandeur scheme.

He cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against a wall and wishing he'd brought something warmer with him. When she'd said countryside, she'd _meant_ countryside. Only an insane person would drive thirty miles out of town just for a day "out".

He'd had a hell of a time finding the place, too, although, a multi-story building in the middle of nowhere did seem a little suspicious. He should have known that it would belong to her the minute he'd laid eyes on it. Only _Kagome_ would do something as inane as build a complex so far away from civilization.

"We can still attend, if you'd like." He offered placidly, inhaling the damp air though his nose and exhaling through his mouth.

Sesshoumaru didn't like rain.

On days like these he liked to stay indoors in front of a fire and sip on brandy or bourbon, cognac and rye whiskey.

He acknowledged her grunt silently. "I still need eleven more months of therapy, Doc. You should know that."

Sesshoumaru sighed. "Says who?"

Kagome looked over her shoulder at him, catching his eyes and smiling mischievously. "The law, or did you forget, hmm? Those grey hairs finally catching up to you, _Doctor Taishou_?" She mocked in all sincerity and Sesshoumaru had to grit his teeth and clench his fist in order to stop from doing anything irrational.

"Silver," he replied through his teeth, his eyes narrowing into slits as he imagined all the ways to kill her and be done with it without being caught and tried for murder. Surely the judge would understand when he explained that the woman was _clearly_ insane. "Every Sunday, then. Ten o'clock sharp, and I _do_ mean sharp, Miss Higurashi."

Kagome's mouth twitched, but she nodded anyway, rubbing the tips of her fingers across her palm through the gloves. She always appeared as elegant in the fancy clothes she wore. Hardly a teenager anymore, Sesshoumaru mused quietly as he pushed off from the wall, walking past her and towards the elevator.

"Good, then I'll see you tomorrow bright and early. Any other questions, Higurashi?"

"Yeah." Kagome smirked. "Where do babies come from?"


	5. V

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

Kagome stumbled through the doorway in a drunken haze, her white blouse wrinkled, hair greasy, messy and out of place and a half-dead look in her eyes.

The words meant to reprimand her for being late (they had promised) died on his lips as she half slunk, half flung herself across the room and into the plush chair opposite him, her purple-bruised eyelids lowering to half-mast, concealing the enlarged pupil circled by a thin ring of blue. Sesshoumaru wondered if it was new medication, or if she was just high.

From the corner of his eye, Sesshoumaru could see his secretary – a younger woman with bleached hair and ram-horn glasses – close the door to his study, a somewhat bewildered look on her face as the woman across from him closed her eyes and let her head sag against the cushioned seat behind her.

It was the first time he'd seen the woman anything _but_ demanding or sarcastic (because being stubborn was something he was _sure_ was embedded in her genes), and Sesshoumaru didn't know whether to be alarmed or amused. At least this way he might get a few good answers from her – provided she didn't fall asleep on him, first.

"You're late." He intoned sternly, lacing his fingers together over the width of his elbows pressed cleanly against his thighs, his back hunched over to accommodate the unnatural position. From his vantage point, Sesshoumaru could clearly see the purple-ish bruises under her eyes, almost more like indents in her face that hinted to sleep deprivation rather than a broken nose or black eye.

Kagome wasn't the type to get into fights, though, and he doubted that anything short of a million job requests would make her lose more than a wink of sleep. It was an interesting development to see the one person, besides himself, who cared only for the trivial, selfish little details in life look so _out _of it, that Sesshoumaru had to wonder if the apocalypse was coming a few millennium too early.

Kagome dismissed him with a tired wave of her hand, the appendage looking more like a helpless flop against her knee than anything chronologically functional. "Says he who was late by half an hour last time." She mumbled into the suede armrest.

Apparently wit was _not_ past her in her inherent state.

Doctor Taishou sighed exasperatedly, restraining the urge to roll his eyes at her childish antics. That had been nearly a month ago, and he'd only been late because only a raving mad _lunatic_ would call him out at a quarter past midnight to the suburbs and expect him to find his way around. Not to mention the storm.

Sesshoumaru hated storms.

He dismissed the topic irresponsibly, moving on to the next with little enthusiasm. "What do you want to talk about today, Higurashi?" He asked disinterestedly, looking down and away from her to the clock on the wall behind him. Damn. He still had another fifty-five minutes. "Butterflies? Politics? The attitude adjustment I can see coming in the very near future?"

Kagome humoured him with a quiet snort, the sound so distant he had to strain to hear, and even then he would have missed it if he hadn't seen her chest stall or the wry smile on her up-quirked lips.

"Tell me, Doctor–" she started, yawning widely and nuzzling further into his chair. "–do you _always_ antagonize your patients?"

"Do you always fall asleep on your therapists?" Sesshoumaru quipped, ignoring her question intentionally.

A lazy blue eye cracked open a fraction, studying him intently from behind black lashes before it was shut again and a derogatory-sounding hum filled the luxurious room. "I thought you'd have better mental barbs than that, Doctor. I'm disappointed." Her voice, while it had started out sounding strong, had trailed off towards the end of the sentence and Sesshoumaru found himself uncharacteristically concerned.

If the woman died in his office, it _certainly_ wouldn't look good on his record, and bodies were _very_ hard to hide in this day and age. Once again, Sesshoumaru found himself wishing he'd been born in another century, when human-kind had been less intelligent and ten times more stupid.

It certainly would have made _his_ job easier – that was for sure.

"What are you on?" He asked, leaning back in his chair, grateful for the padded cushioning that supported his back as he shifted and made himself more comfortable. He could easily see why she'd chosen it for her choice bed; he dreaded the moment he'd have to wake her up and tell her to go home. Kagome, as he'd figured out, was not a morning person.

"... Pills." Kagome replied after a long, drawn out silence in which Sesshoumaru had held his breath, hoping that the woman _hadn't_ fallen asleep just yet. He was required to fill at least ten minutes of the hour long session with chatter. The other fifty minutes didn't count much, not that they would anyway, even if Kagome was a blabber-mouthed idiot who didn't know when to shut up.

Sesshoumaru doubted she would have had anything interesting to say, and he most certainly didn't see the appeal of discussing the latest sale down at the shopping centre.

Not that he had much of an interest in the red light district, either, but it was the protocol that summed things up in the end.

Sesshoumaru was a sucker for protocol.

"Doctor said something about sleeping pills or antidepressants or somethin' like... that." Kagome stated through a yawn, effectively bringing Sesshoumaru out of his reverie.

Yes. Hookers were bad, work was good.

_Come on, come on, five more minutes_, Sesshoumaru pleaded in his mind, tapping his foot impatiently as he watched the black-haired woman blindly grope for her bag and pull out a hard candy from its interior. Did she _always_ have candy on her? It was one of the unsolved mysteries of Higurashi Kagome, but neither was it relevant or productive, so Sesshoumaru didn't bother to find out.

"They say I have to talk to you," he said after a moment of silence as Kagome popped the circular, amber-coloured candy into her mouth, never bothering to open her eyes as she did so. She discarded the wrapper on the floor next to the chair and Sesshoumaru frowned. He didn't like messes.

"Mmm, so talk."

Sesshoumaru snapped his head back to Kagome so quickly that he heard the bones in his neck crack. He nearly cringed at the sound.

"Normally, this means you do the talking while I listen." He informed her, his fingers twitching at the thought of writing down her personal data. _Unwilling to cooperate... counterproductive conversations... sarcastic outlook on life _– it could go on forever.

There was that slitted blue again, glancing at him from the corner of her eye while the expression on her face seemed to say _'are you serious?'_

"Who said I was normal?" Kagome asked blearily, more of a mumble than actual distinctive words, and Sesshoumaru had to pause to decode her incoherent babbling. "And why did you believe them?" A humourless, slurred chuckle filled the room and he didn't know whether she was laughing at her joke, or at _him._

"Just like physics and gravity don't get along?" Sesshoumaru asked dryly, glancing at the clock again. Not much time had passed.

He wondered what its appeal was – whenever Kagome sat in that chair (whenever she was _awake_)_, _she would glance at the clock every so often, sometimes a disgusted look on her face. She would then look away quickly, down to her own watch and an emotionless mask would flit over her features, replacing the pinched-up eyes, wrinkled brows and pursed lips with a smooth facade of zero wrinkles.

Realizing that a full two minutes had passed without a reply and noting that her breathing had evened out and the erratic eye movement under her eyelids, Sesshoumaru decided that she was asleep and resigned himself to a long and boring fifty minute wait.

Really, he didn't see the appeal at all.

_(I know, I know. I'm a horrible person. Feel free to smack me upside the head and call me a dirty phish for procrastinating. _I know_. There's a name for this, I just can't remember what it's called-oh! I remember: "fanfiction". Amazing right? Now let me go back to smelling, tasting and hating ammonia. – Incomprehensible)_


	6. VI

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

Kagome burst through the varnished wooden doors, looking for all the world Sesshoumaru imagined a crazy person would; her hair, usually done up in some elegant style that boasted her long neck, was displayed in a wild disarray of obsidian knots, her lips parted wide as large, gaping breaths worked furiously between the rosy red orifices while her chest heaved up and down violently under the white bathrobe she wore.

It was a sight to behold, and Sesshoumaru sat, perfectly content to just watch, as her blue eyes flickered back and finally coming to rest on him.

"You," she gasped out, her eyes narrowing. Sesshoumaru noted that her pupils were dilated again. The pills, he realized.

"Me." He reaffirmed, shifting in his chair and waiting for her to continue. He wasn't in the least bit concerned with her choice of apparel – he'd had a patient who thought it normal to dress like a feudal era daimyo one week and then a western druid the next. Sesshoumaru certainly wouldn't put it past Kagome to pull this little stunt out of boredom.

This seemed to displease Kagome, and a minute frown tugged down the corner of her lips, before her eyes flicked over to his newest patient – a gender confused kid with schizophrenia. Sesshoumaru watched as her eyes trailed over the high forehead, crooked nose and tear-shaped scar under the left eye, the skin a patchy shade of red pink where the raised ridges hadn't been healed white before she looked away, apparently satisfied.

Kagome's eyes sought his again and he could see the pale exhaustion that hung from her eyes like purple sacks of fatigue. He idly wondered how long it had been since she'd slept this time.

"They're back," she whispered surreptitiously, as if raising her voice any louder would send the dogs of hell on her. "They're back!"

Sesshoumaru sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose exasperatedly. Honestly, couldn't she see he was in the middle of a lesson? "Who's back?"

Kagome paused in her chanting to look at the doctor as if _he_ was the insane one. She stared at him for a moment more before narrowing her eyes, hunching her shoulders and leaning in towards him. "The demons!"

_(Gag? In which we address the issue so many have waited. Well, almost. This was a sort of a blah chapter: really short, not much thought put into it – I'm not very focused on _Vanity_ at the moment, so anyone who wants to complain can go suck waffle. April Fools? Happy Christmas! – Incomprehensible)_


	7. VII

Characters and plot belong to their rightful owners.

**Vanity**

Time goes by, smothering all the little cracks like plaster smoothes against rough brick.

There's a faint smell of fire in the distance and thunder rumbles a long, continuous stream of sound just above the darkened clouds. The earth is cold and dark, the grass seeming more depressing than it should; vibrant and painful against the starch and jagged of granite, row upon row as it foretells the suffering of the living and the lives of the dead; like a knife severing nerve-endings – it's painful.

The soft knocking of wooden wind chimes drift on strong currents; howling wind as it rushes by, screeching mournful melodies through ears of the yet-living.

Questions flit through the air; unasked; unanswered by a steady wall of black, twisting and churning like bitter inconsequential: thorns of ebony. They're stains against pale skin.

Death is knocking at the door.

-

"_The interesting thing about death,"_ it says, the letters looping and curving in perfect soliloquy, _"-is that it's a double act." _He snorts in derision, noting with clarity that it _is_, in fact, something that sounds like it would come from that perfectly rouged mouth.

There's a flash to his left, and he blinks himself back into reality, running a hand across his forehead and over his eyes as the reality sets in. The sound of hushed voices, muted by distance and deference, reaches his ears, and he tunes it out until it becomes just a dull buzzing in his ears.

He takes his time reading the letter, taking in every line and stroke that composes and mars the paper's white complexion. It's a dark meaning, full of cynical musing and mocking insincerity. He feels sick as the last letters catch his eye. They stick out like a sore thumb, and a lump forms deep in his throat, constricting his breathing and making him dizzy.

"_I'm not sorry._" It says.

He leaves the apartment building soon after, his mind taken with errant thoughts and ponderings and he doesn't realize when he's bathed in the startlingly cold November air.

"_Sir, sir! What's your statement, sir?"_

"_What was your relationship with the involved party?"_

"_How do you think this will affect the surrounding community?"_

"_Do you plan on taking action against other such affairs?"_

He doesn't register anything as he pushes through the crowd of people with cameras and microphones and notepads towards his car, the letter crushed firmly in his hand.

He wonders what it's like being all alone. Isolation must surely be a dreadful existence.

He's never the same after.

-

Images swarm his mind.

Images swarm his mind and invade his memories, making it impossible to think. He drowns the voices and thoughts and memories in a pool of liquid amber: scotch whiskey and tonic and anything else that will get him drunk enough to forget, although, he's never quite drunk enough to mute the nagging voice in the back of his head that whispers obscene, dark words to his conscience.

Night is an unwilling nightmare in which the same scene is played over and over again. There's no rest for him.

In desperation he leaves his apartment for the first time in days, unclean, unshaven and reeking of booze and depression. He visits the grave, a mad look in his eyes that frightens the other grave-goers.

"_Maybe a lover?"_ They whisper behind his back. He ignores them and takes another swig from the bottle of whiskey he brought along just for this occasion. It's a bitter-sweet feeling, this wondrous insanity of his.

He stays overnight, slung halfway across the grave, bottle three-quarters empty on the rough, uneven ground, just beginning to show the new forms of life; small, green shoots of grass determined to spring through the ground, despite the chill in the air and the quickening of winter.

He smiles bitterly, remembering their last conversation – how she told him of how she had burned her socks because they didn't match, how she had only crunched the hard candy because it annoyed him, how the muscles in his jaw rolled when he was frustrated and the tick in his hand when he wanted to write something down, but couldn't. How he was attractive.

His eyes drifted down to the paper tied down to the front of the grave with a small pebble, decorated in smears of dirt and soil that he somehow hadn't managed to leave behind. His eyes fell to the last line, and he chocked.

"_I'm not sorry._" It said.

With a sobbing roar, he doubled over on the headstone, and the sky split open like a knife had sliced through the clouds. Torrents of rain came down on his prone form.

His tears mixed with the rain.

He was driven to insanity.

-

"_I'm crazy_." She said. There wasn't a hint of doubt in her voice, and Sesshoumaru was torn between shock and uncertainty. He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came, so he closed his mouth, tasting bitterness on his tongue.

They were silent.

Leaves danced on errant breezes, slowly drifting to the ground to rejoin their kinsmen of orange and red and brown. The sun smiled down on them, decorating the ground in patches of sundrenched yellow, tattooing her grandfather's grave a picture of alabaster and daylight.

Kagome's eyes were dull and lifeless, despite the way the smile curved her lips; sad; ironic.

"I was in love, once, you know." She declared suddenly, destroying the perfect silence.

"I know." Sesshoumaru replied, and he did know. Her mother had met with him, upon his insistence (though Kagome didn't know, and he was determined to keep it a secret from the woman), and relayed that which was not in her file to him.

A bastard and a drunk. Both had stolen her heart. Sesshoumaru pitied her – it was no wonder she was "crazy", as she put it.

"Oh." She replied distantly, pushing a lock of ebony hair behind her ear with shaking fingers. "I'm crazy." She repeated, and he twitched, crushing his molars together, waiting for her to explain.

There was a pause before she spoke again, her voice rough with expression that didn't quite reach her face. He studied her profile from the side, eyes tracing the angular nose, strong jaw and dark blue eye, framed by dark lashes, free of makeup. She was pretty without makeup.

"I was in love, once – he was rough and uncouth and had no manners to speak of, but I loved him all the same. We met at a party – he'd just broken up with his girlfriend, and I..." her voice took on a scornfully amused tone as a dry smile took her lips. "I had been dragged there by a friend – one of those ridiculous clichés that you read about but never believe. I wanted to be rebellious, you know, so I went along. He told me he was single and we hit it off real well – so well, in fact, that he proposed to me.

"Naturally-" she snuck a look at him from the corner of her eye and the side of her mouth tugged upwards in a crooked smirk, her eyes sparking with mischievous delight. "-I agreed, being in love with him and all. Momma didn't like that much, so we went off and eloped. Planning everything, though, was Hell. Finding and booking a priest to marry us wasn't as easy as we'd thought it would be. The witness, though, offered willingly enough...."

Kagome hummed softly, her sentence trailing off as she stared at her grandfather's grave.

Sesshoumaru knew what was coming. He'd heard different versions of the gruelling sketch from her friends and family. Hearing it from her, though, was a different story. Sesshoumaru found himself swept up in her tale, entranced with her voice as it wove a story through his mind like a web ready to ensnare a bug. The emotion was real enough; he felt as though it was tangible: all he had to do was reach out and touch it for it to spring to life like a character out of a book.

The wind whispered through the almost-barren trees, the branches scraping together. _Krrch! Krrch! Krrch!_

A crow screamed in the distance.

Kagome's voice brought his attention back to her, and the rest of the world faded around them until just the two of them remained. Him, a lonely bachelor with nothing to go home to, and her, a broken doll with no one to love her anymore.

"It was nothing fancy, the wedding – him in ripped jeans and a damn tee, and me in sweatpants and a hoodie, nothing special to speak of. I honestly loved him... if he had asked me to go to the moon for him, I would have. I didn't think I could live without him. At that time, he had become something like air to me – without him, I probably would have died. Or, at least, so I thought. In any case, it didn't seem to matter that I would have ripped out my heart and given it to him if he had so wanted, because just when he was supposed to recite his vows, he left the alter and boycotted with the witness – at the time, my best friend. I later found out that she was his ex and that they'd broken up the night of that party. Naïveté goes a long way in this world, I've found.

"Anyway, I was heartbroken by his infidelity towards me. After that, I started taking pills and drugs: anything that was offered to me, really. I was a real mess. That's probably when I first started having the hallucinations." She shrugged noncommittally, as though she had been talking about the weather rather than the events that lead to her mismanaged lifestyle and corrupted mental state.

Sesshoumaru would have snorted if it had been in his manner to do so. It was _so _like her to take something so devastating and turn it into something ambiguously detached and approachable, almost friendly, even.

The sun had long since started its descent and now sat low in the sky, just lingering above the horizon, shooting rays of orangey-gold colour to rub the world goodbye in lieu of goodnight before the moon hoisted itself upwards to take its place in ever vigilant watch.

The last vestiges of warmth kissed his cheek before the cool, ebbing wind replaced it with a chill more befitting to the season. It was late October. He didn't want to get caught in the late, the nights having become colder and colder over the passing days, and without a warm jacket – only having brought a sheer windbreaker – he felt the nip. Still, he stayed, too engrossed in the truth to care.

Street-post lamps flickered to life, shuttering between light and dark before finally settling on leaving pools of yellow to dot the ground and blot out the creeping shadows. Soon it would be totally dark.

Kagome didn't move.

"At first they were random," she started again. "Just fleeting images, mostly incoherent and hard to make out, but they became more and more focused as I got deeper and deeper into the underground of drug trafficking. Eventually they became clear, and I found myself in a sea of characters I never thought I'd meet in a lifetime. It was more than I could have hoped for – adventures more wild than I could believe, monsters more creative than reality, and friends more loyal than dogs." She paused, smiling secretively. Sesshoumaru felt he was out of the loop of an inside joke, but didn't comment.

"That world, whether of my own making or that relating to the drug I don't know, became my home. I spent as much time there as I could; stuffing myself with hallucinatory prescriptions until I couldn't think anymore. It was the only place I could escape to where the pain of heartache didn't reach me, and, at that time, it was true. My world. My reality." Kagome wrapped her arms around herself, looking longing. Sesshoumaru wondered if she wanted to go back.

Probably.

"The abyss sucked my soul until I couldn't think. I was captured – entranced. A well, a forest, a village, a monster, a team of good guys and bad.... A hanyou, a monk, a little fox kit, a demon slayer and a miko. I was a sister, a friend, a tutor, a healer, a mother, and... a lover." She stumbled over the word. "I was fake."

Kagome fell silent, and Sesshoumaru thought he saw a tear fall from her eye. With the failing light and her back to him, however, he couldn't be sure.

Quiet, interrupted only by the chirping of late cicadas, rolled through the graveyard, heavy and suppressing. Sesshoumaru scarcely dared to breathe, lest it snap Kagome out of her reverie and prevent her from continuing with her story. She was nothing now. Just an empty casing, revealing all of her secrets to the world.

Sesshoumaru could tell that he was long forgotten to her now. He'd keep her company until she was done, though; greedily sucking up the story she spewed to him. To her grandfather and, perhaps, herself. The story was meant for no one, and at the moment, he was nobody.

Sesshoumaru felt lonely, cold, despite her presence.

"Then I met the second love of my life. He was handsome and smart and charming and everything a man ought to be, and for some unfathomable reason, he fell in love with me. Slowly, the hallucinations faded until they were completely gone and I had stopped taking drugs and prescriptions and pills all together. He was my saving grace in that respect, luring me out of the dark and back into the light until I was a proper human being again. I went to rehab and saw a counsellor ever Tuesday and Thursday, and I got better. The depression went away and I could think and function properly again....

"I fell more and more in love with him every time we met, his chivalry swept me off my feet and won over a little more of my heart until all I lived for was that special time we talked or saw each other. He came from one of those prestigious families, y'know? A real gentleman, real strict with religion and manners, he managed to dazzle my family, and before I knew it, we were engaged and living together. He'd go to work in the morning, call precisely at twelve-ten, come home, eat supper with me, have a drink and then we'd go to bed.

"I was a fool, but I was content. Things went like that for a while, but then he ran into trouble at work, staying out later and later until sometimes he'd come creeping in at three in the morning. His charm gave way and he became testy and was constantly in a bad mood, refusing to talk to me unless it was to make demands or order me to do something. The calls stopped coming at noon and I stopped making supper for two.

"At the time, I had hoped it was just a phase – a work related thing that he'd get over soon enough and return to my side the refined, chivalrous man he was. That didn't happen. Instead, things got worse to the point that he stopped coming home: staying out all night, and when he _did_ come home, he always smelled of booze and perfume. His moods were worse than ever.

"The first time he hit me, I managed to convince myself that it had been merely accident... that he had moved to pick something up and accidentally hit me instead. The next time he hit me, it was harder to convince myself, but not nearly as hard as it would become later on in our relationship. The bruises and cuts hurt, of course, but my 'love' was stronger than the pain and I somehow got through it – liquor played a big part, but I managed."

Kagome smiled humourlessly, tightening her hold on herself, her hands fisting into the overcoat she wore, mercilessly twisting the fabric beneath her feeble, womanly hands.

"And then it happened. He came home in a storm, drunk and out of his mind, half crazed in his binge, accusing me of things I hadn't done, saying how I was unfaithful and had betrayed him.... Something in me snapped at that and made me... so _mad!_" Her voice was thick with emotion, on the verge of breaking as it wobbled with self-compassion.

She inhaled unsteadily, gulping down the air audibly and swallowing once before continuing.

"I was crazy then... I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe it was the accusation of disloyalty that got to me, or maybe it was the continuous strain of mental abuse that made me snap, but _God_ did it ever feel good. The kitchen knife was just there, glinting... begging... and I did it. I killed him. I got off when my lawyer pled insanity on my behalf. It's not on my file, but I killed him, and I don't feel regret towards my actions. As far as I'm concerned, I did myself a favour."

Sesshoumaru suddenly found her hands not so feeble. They were the hands of a woman; of a killer.

"After that, I got really involved with drugs again, despite the rehabilitation and therapy I was going through at the time. Despite our hardest attempts, I still got my hands on drugs and retreated back into my fantasies, once again returned to my little world in which good battled evil and demons and monsters were real, where I had friends. It was as if they never existed – my ex-fiancés and problems – it was just us." She fell silent again, and Sesshoumaru exhaled slowly, releasing the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.

That was the end.

What a desolate existence.

Sesshoumaru shifted his weight, glancing at Kagome's stiff back, at the quarter-full and waxing moon and Kagome's back again before trying to make out the figures on his watch. Nine-fifty-five.

Sesshoumaru exhaled again, pulling his coat up to his ears. Realizing just how cold his hands were – his fingers frozen and probably half blue – he rubbed them together, a futile effort to circulate blood to the poor appendages and bring warmth back into them.

He was in the midst of blowing warm air onto them when Kagome spoke again, a full ten minutes after she had fallen silent.

"You were there." She said, turning her torso half way and peering at him from the corners of her eyes. "You were there, in my hallucinations."

Sesshoumaru stilled, unsure of what to say. He had been in her hallucinations? He wondered if he had been a human or a beast, a youkai, to her eyes. "Hn. Is that so?" He asked uncertainly, amusing the thought of being a devil.

"Mmmn," she hummed in acquiescence, fully turning to face him so that her back faced the grave she had come to visit. The anniversary of her grandfather's death. One year. They'd been standing there for five hours, he calculated in his head, refusing the urge to cross his eyes and stick out his tongue. His limbs were stiff.

"You were the great and mighty Demon Lord Sesshoumaru Taishou, Prince of Dogs, son of Toga, Inu-no-Taishou, and the leader of the Generation of the Strong." She eyed him up and down slowly, and he fought the urge to shift self-consciously. "You were much more handsome as a demon, though. Much more aloof, less human. Much taller." She teased, some small part of mischievousness back in her eyes, though only a fraction of what he had seen earlier.

Sesshoumaru huffed good-naturedly, disregarding the barb by wrinkling his nose. "And the others? You mentioned other characters in you long, rambling monologue."

"Well, excuse _me_ for answering all of your questions." She replied haughtily, turning her head away from him and crossing her arms in front of her chest. A moment later, though, she turned back.

"They were real. The hanyou-" she murmured a name, too low for him to hear. "-your deceased younger brother played his part, while, similarly, your father was 'Toga'. The others..." Kagome shrugged one shoulder carelessly. "They were random people I'd seen around, I guess. A corporate leader, a celebrity, random orphans... people like that, mostly." He sensed something deeper, but didn't push for information.

"Anyways," she said all of a sudden, drawing his eyes to her form. "It's getting late, and I'm cold, so I take my leave." Kagome turned around, clapped her hands twice and said a final prayer for her grandfather before turning to face him once more. "Goodbye, Mister Taishou." She said, her tone turning serious again – almost sad. "This is the last time we'll meet." She smiled without real cheer and corrected herself. "Well, for me, at least. Have a good life, Mister Taishou." And she walked away, leaving Sesshoumaru staring after her. _"I'm not sorry_." She said, but he could have been mistaken. After all, she was already far away, and he didn't have super hearing, like the mythical _youkai_ were said to.

Sesshoumaru, too, said a prayer for the deceased man beneath the headstone and hurried out of the graveyard, yearning for a cup of coffee and pondering on what he had learned of _Higurashi Kagome._

-

_Flash!_

_**Ms. Higurashi Kagome**_

_Miss Higurashi Kagome, 24, died last night at what coroners estimate 12:00 o'clock this morning in her home, having committed suicide. Doctor Miura Aoi, Higurashi's private physician, explains that years of mental deterioration took a great toll on the young woman and eventually drove her to taking her own life. After abusing both drugs and alcohol on more than one account after seeking rehabilitation, it is widely believed that Higurashi had lost her mind to insanity. The victim was found in her own bathtub, surrounded by rose petals and electrocuted. The body has been laid to rest at _Nenzuru Cemetery_._

_-_

_(So, in the end, she killed herself and drove Sesshoumaru to insanity. Well, inspiration finally struck and I got this down in one go, thank the French Toast. I probably wrote this chapter fifty times before scrapping everything and writing it another fifty times before I came up with this. _Nenzuru _means "_to pray silently_" in Japanese. Thank you for reading _Vanity! _– Incomprehensible)_


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